


Birds of a Feather (Flock Together)

by ArtsyDeath



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Asexual Uchiha Itachi, Crow Culture, Families of Choice, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, Loyalty, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, She's not terribly impressed by Konoha, Touch-Starved, Tsukimi just wants her Itachi-sama to smile again, Tsukimi ships Itachi/happiness, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyDeath/pseuds/ArtsyDeath
Summary: “Hello, Tsukimi,” Itachi-sama says very gently.Tsukimi is Tsukimi – named so because she falls in love with the moon upon hatching.She thinks she falls in love a second time as she sees the moon reflected in eyes as black as the night.-or: sometimes family is more than hands and feet; it's wings and and a sharp beak and and clever black eyes determined to see her boy alive no matter the cost.
Relationships: Akatsuki & Original Female Character, Hoshigaki Kisame & Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Itachi & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 338





	Birds of a Feather (Flock Together)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Guardian Angel of Trouble Twins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791274) by [dianamoth (lunaemoth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaemoth/pseuds/dianamoth). 



The first time Tsukimi meets Itachi-sama she’s just a tiny fledgling, her feathers more tufty than fluffy and she’s just starting to get the hang of flying.

She feels the tugging when she’s nestling down to go to sleep and in a little puff of smoke she finds herself staring up at a human boy, his hands very gently cupping around her as her wings spreads out with a startled flutter before slowly tucking down against her body.

She gives a small chirp of surprise and she hears the flutter of familiar wings behind her, Elder Karasu-sama’s voice reaching her from behind as he introduces them.

“Hello, Tsukimi,” Itachi-sama says very gently.

Tsukimi is Tsukimi – named so because she falls in love with the moon upon hatching.

She thinks she falls in love a second time as she sees the moon reflected in eyes as black as the night.

-

Tsukimi is a crow and like any crow she finds a lot of Itachi-sama’s mannerisms strange.

She does not hesitate to crowd him about it, always trying to understand him better, ignoring the entertained grin of Shisui-sama as she balanced precariously on one foot, talons digging into the fabric while careful not to actually pierce the skin of his shoulder, sticking the other out as close as she could get it to his face.

“I see you’ve found my sweets,” Itachi murmurs as he pries the sticky and very much mauled mochi off her talons.

“Itachi-sama likes them.” Tsukimi remains patiently still as he fishes for a small piece of fabric to wipe her foot clean. “It is only right that I, as your summon, should know your likes as well as they were my own.” She straightens out self-importantly.

“Does that mean I should be feeding Itachi-chan your almonds?” Shisui asks her and Tsukimi whips around to look at him, a chirp of distress escaping her as she flailed only to be caught in a gentle and familiar palm.

“Itachi-sama-“

“I am not going to eat your almonds, Tsukimi,” Itachi-sama reassures her with a small quirk of his lips.

“Oh.” Tsukimi ruffles her wings. “That’s okay then.”

“Please stay out of my sweets,” Itachi-sama requests. “Between you and Sasuke I’ll have none left.”

Tsukimi does not mention that she’d needed human hands to open his wardrobe and dig out his sweet stash. She does not mention that it had taken very little to bribe his little brother into agreeing and she does not mention that the last time she’d seen Sasuke-sama he’d been looking rather akin to a chipmunk, cheeks bulging and white streaked across his nose.

Some things are simply left discovered once she’s back in Getsumei.

-

Tsukimi grows alongside Itachi-sama and as he learns to hunt so does she. She learns to be as quiet as the night, to not draw attention, to blend in and watch for the signals of her boy.

She’s proud when she’s entrusted to meet his team, to become one of the hunters at his side, and she promises herself to never fail him.

Itachi-sama’s gentle eyes peers out at her from the painted lines of a crow’s face and Tsukimi has never been so flattered in her life.

Hound is the leader and Tsukimi becomes acquainted with a small pug known only as Pakkun, a fellow summon who wears a beautiful blue vest with his summoner’s mark branded upon it.

 _One day,_ Tsukimi thinks to herself as she eyes it enviously. Itachi-sama tries to explain why she can’t, yet, but it all circles back to human nonsense as far as she’s concerned.

-

Itachi-sama hunts his own kind and Tsukimi does not understand the look in his eyes when he comes home and tears the mask off his face and collapses down on the bed to draw his knees to his chest.

She puffs her head against his fingers and wiggles her body awkwardly into his arms until he slowly wraps them around her. It’s terribly undignified for a crow but Shisui-sama says hugs are good for the soul.

So Tsukimi tries but she’s but a crow and she can’t do anything but watch and stay by his side as Itachi-sama’s smiles grow less and less frequent during the years.

And then Shisui-sama is dead and there’s a new order being made and Tsukimi learns what hatred is as Itachi-sama stops smiling at all.

-

“Akatsuki?” Tsukimi wonders, fluttering her wings as she settled down from the abrupt summoning, claws grasping a bit awkwardly onto the sheets and yanking back as one of her talons went through.

She gives Itachi-sama a plaintive look and he lowers his arm, allowing her to curl her talons around his wrist because she’s no longer small enough to fit in the palm of his hands.

She stretches out her wings, giving him a chance to admire them in all their splendid glory, for she’s newly preened all for him, and he strokes a single finger between her eyes and down her back.

“It is Hokage-sama’s orders,” Itachi-sama tells her. “You know there is no-one I trust more than you, Tsukimi. But this mission will put both of us in grave danger if you chose to do this with me.”

Tsukimi gazes up at him. “We hunt together,” she promises him.

His palm stills, momentarily warm against her back, and then he squeezes down ever so gently.

It is not a hug but Tsukimi is a crow, she does not need hugs or words to understand love and loyalty.

It is not for nothing it’s called a murder of crows and Tsukimi will stay with him to the end.

-

Tsukimi meets Hoshigaki Kisame and finds herself fascinated. He’s Itachi-sama’s assigned partner in Akatsuki and they both wear pretty coats in black with clouds in red.

It’s night, a small fire burning between them, Kisame-sama stretched out to rest against a tree while Itachi-sama sits curled up against his own.

“Are you a shark?” she wonders, peering inquisitively at him from Itachi-sama’s shoulder in the small clearing she’d been summoned to. “Your scent says shark,” she informs him when he looks to her with pinprick eyes and vague curiosity. “But you look human.”

“The Hoshigaki family has been contracted to the sharks for generations,” he tells her, flashing sharp teeth.

Tsukimi tilts her head, snaps her beak a bit curiously.

“You would have been pretty as a crow-human,” she informs her summoner who huffs quietly, stroking a finger down her back.

Itachi-sama is the first summoner of crows for generations. It is likely he will take some of their characterizations with time but he’ll never have their beaks or wings or talons.

But that is fine for Tsukimi resolves to be all of that and more for him.

-

Kisame-sama is a good hunter and Tsukimi watches and decides the likes him as he prods Itachi-sama into eating more and shields him from the rain with a gruffness that hides his soft belly as they thread their way through Ame.

She decides that he makes a good flock in place for the one Itachi-sama had lost as he dumps a towel on Itachi-sama’s head and gives it a good ruffle as her boy peers balefully up at him.

-

Tsukimi meets more and more of the Akatsuki members during the following two years and while Kisame-sama remains her favourite she finds that she likes blue haired woman known as Konan-sama who smells of ink and who folds a most flattering likeness of Tsukimi out of paper.

It proudly comes to be displayed next to Itachi-sama’s bed.

She meets Leader-sama on more than one occasion – a silent man with sad eyes who smells of decay. Tsukimi doesn’t know quite what to make of him, he reminds her a bit of Itachi-sama and she thinks that’s maybe why she develops a bit of a soft spot for him as well.

She prods Itachi-sama into spending more time in the communal area of whatever base they happen to frequent at the time and she enjoys the many nesting places she finds in nooks and corners of the cave walls even if she never does more than nap there, never too far from her summoner’s side.

Kakuzu-sama is the oldest member, she comes to learn, and while he’s an impatient man she finds that he loves the shiny rocks she brings him. It’s a bit of a hit and miss but she learns that he likes the see through rocks the best and doesn’t hesitate to exchange them for a handful of almonds.

Itachi-sama gives a rather amused look as he watches and he never voices any protests when she tucks her stash into one of the many pockets of his cloak.

Tsukimi thinks herself very clever.

Some members come and go and she learns not to get too attached to Kakuzu-sama’s partners because they always end up annoying him and an annoyed Kakuzu means a dead partner.

She likes Orochimaru-sama the least and Tsukimi takes great joy in seeing him flee after he’d foolishly tried to go after her Itachi-sama.

She takes even greater pleasure in procuring the finger with the ring to Leader-sama when they’re called to his office in the aftermath of it.

He gives her so many almonds.

Tsukimi is really getting the hang of this whole Akatsuki thing.

-

(And maybe Tsukimi, deep down, thinks that they make a better flock than Konoha. She never voices this to Itachi-sama and she remains ever faithful but she thinks that maybe he knows for Itachi-sama is clever and his gaze contemplative in the dark of the night as he watches Kisame-sama deep asleep in the other bed in their shared room).

-

Itachi-sama turns fifteen and Tsukimi watches with worry as his coughs starts up and never goes away, a grimace in the middle of the night as he paws for the bottle of water he comes to keep near him, one palm pressing heavily against his chest.

“He’s been coughing for more than two months now,” Kisame-sama murmurs to her as they both watches over their charge. “It’s only getting worse.”

“We should speak to Leader-sama.” Tsukimi flutters her wings, feeling useless as she listens to his laboured breathing. “He needs to see a healer.”

Itachi-sama smells of sickness and she does not like it. It layers over his natural scent like a cloying ugly thing and she wants it gone.

“Not a lot of those around here who accept missing-nin,” Kisame-sama says with a grimace. “Especially not good ones.”

-

It turns out Kisame-sama is correct.

Tsukimi refuses to watch Itachi-sama die before he knows to live.

“Guard him in my place,” Tsukimi demands of him one night, fluttering down to land on the ground to peer up at him.

Kisame watches her with pin-prick eyes in the dark and then he inclines his head and holds up his palm.

It is a summoner’s place to feed her chakra levels but Tsukimi accepts what Kisame-sama offers her and lets him fill up her stores until she’s nearly drunk on the chakra that courses through her. It feels different than Itachi-sama, wrong and right at the same time, because Kisame-sama is flock and he watches over Itachi-sama when she can’t.

She spares the time to brush her head up against the back of Itachi-sama fingers and then she takes to the sky, disappearing into the darkness of the night, and banks her hopes on whispers.

-

It takes her two weeks to track down Jiraiya-sama. They’ve been meeting up with him often enough during the years that he merely offers her a surprised glance when she flutters down onto his shoulder at a small ramen stall in Kirigakure.

Her feathers are wet and she’d flown longer than was reasonable in the rain and night and she can’t help but wilt a bit tiredly against him as he gently tucks her beneath his vest.

Jiraiya-sama smells like the toads and oil and the coins in his pocket rustles as he pays and excuses himself.

“I need your help,” she tells him when they’re at a small inn and a privacy seal expands in place. “Itachi-sama, he’s sick.” She gazes up at him. “We can’t help him and he’s only getting worse.”

Jiraiya-sama strokes a palm down his chin, looking tired suddenly as a wan smile dips his mouth.

“You want Tsunade, huh?”

“Itachi-sama serves Konoha even now. It owes him more than a slow death among enemies,” Tsukimi tells him, fluttering her wings to shake some of the water off. “Tsunade-sama is the best iryo-nin out there. If she can help-“

Jiraiya-sama holds up a hand.

“I will take you to her,” he promises her and Tsukimi nearly wilts with relief. “But it’ll be on you to convince her,” he warns.

“Do I have your permission to share Itachi-sama’s mission with her?” Tsukimi demands of him.

Jiraiya levels her with an unreadable look. “I do not believe anything short of death will prevent you from doing so.” He sighs as she tenses, one hand reaching out to drag down her small feathery head. “Sure, I’ll deal with Hiruzen-sensei if it comes down to that.”

Tsukimi is a crow, she knows little of the dealings of humans but she learns from what she sees and to Itachi-sama Konoha is important.

She might not like it. She might not agree. But she serves her Itachi-sama faithfully and she’s relieved that she does not need to betray his trust to keep him safe.

-

Tsukimi spends nearly four weeks travelling with Jiraiya-sama and for a second time in her life she finds herself with foreign chakra coursing through her veins after a long look from Jiraiya-sama as her request.

He never comments on it, they do not discuss it, but Tsukimi knows it is not a summons nature to do what she does and she hopes Elder Karasu never finds out. He’d tear her bloody for allowing such a thing – it’s a great taboo.

Tsukimi does not care. Not if it means she can help Itachi-sama.

“He’s lucky to have you,” is all that Jiraiya remarks one evening and Tsukimi gazes up at him with far too intelligent eyes for a crow and does not comment.

-

Tsukimi’s first impression of Tsunade-sama isn’t a good one. She doesn’t care about the alcohol, she doesn’t care about the gambling, but before she can get a word out Tsunade looks at them both with a flat sort of impression and tells them _no_.

For the second time in her life Tsukimi knows hatred and she spreads her wings, knocking the sake cup and bottle off the table with a crash as she snaps her beak.

“You will listen!” she caws when Tsunade’s eyes darken. “You are the only one who can help my boy and you _will_ or he will _die._ ”

“I know of no-one with the crow contract,” Tsunade growls back with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Tsukimi zeroes on it and then she tastes blood, talons and beak tearing deep as she clings and there’s a scuffle and Jiraiya-sama diving forward as Tsukimi flails her wings, bone snapping as she clings with all the desperation that she knows and feels.

And then she knows nothing at all.

-

She wakes up with a weak croak to a green glow above her body and she feels more than one broken bone inside her chest.

She’s in Tsunade-sama’s lap, awkwardly sprawled and unable to muster more than a weak twitch of her wings as she peers up with a single dark eye to meet unreadable amber ones.

“You’re the single most suicidal summon I’ve met in my life,” Tsunade-sama informs her. “He must be something if you’re prepared to risk your life for him.”

Tsukimi would die for Itachi-sama. He would never ask it of her but he doesn’t need to.

“I want him to live,” she tells Tsunade-sama with a weak caw. “I want to watch him grow and I want him to smile again.”

Tsunade closes her eyes and then she opens them up, glancing over her shoulder at Jiraiya-sama who cocks his head with a small shrug and what-can-you-do sort of expression.

“Fine,” Tsunade mutters. “I’ll hear you out but I’m not promising anything. This will take a couple of minutes more anyway.”

So Tsukimi musters what little energy she has left in her broken body as she details what she knows and what she’d been told, of her boy who had to make a terrible sacrifice and continues to make it still, with his beloved little brother who hates him for sparing his life.

-

She does not take satisfaction in Tsunade’s pale face at the end of it.

The emotions are still too raw and Tsukimi misses Shisui-sama’s smiles just as much as she misses Itachi-sama’s.

Misses the bright grin and sparkle in Sasuke-sama’s eyes as they shared almonds and sweet from a successful raid of Itachi-sama’s wardrobe.

-

Tsukimi returns to Itachi-sama with a time and place and Kisame lowers his head as Itachi-sama watches her with unreadable eyes.

She’s exhausted, still aching despite the healing, but she meets his gaze with stubborn eyes.

“You will go,” she tells him. “If I so have to drag you.”

“You’re a crow,” Itachi-sama points out. “You can’t really drag me anywhere.”

“But I can,” Kisame-sama dips in, a lazy sharkish grin spreading wide as crow and summoner both looks to him. “I’d listen to Tsukimi-san if I were you.”

It’s the first time Tsukimi has ever had an honorific attached to her name and Kisame-sama winks at her when Itachi-sama turns away from them both with a weak cough and no further protests.

His approval fills her with a strange warm glow and that night she sleeps in her Itachi-sama’s arms, his chakra once more coursing through her body.

-

They split up.

Kisame goes on the mission Leader-sama had assigned to them and Tsukimi worries and frets as Itachi’s breath grows more and more ragged even as she forces him to take many and frequent breaks which he allows with exhaustion written into every line of his body.

He grows warm and then feverish and one morning Tsukimi cannot make him get up at all.

She drags and pulls at him but she’s but a crow and her body is far too small.

“Please!” she pleads with him as she lands on his chest, talons digging into the fabric of his cloak with the rain falling heavily above them. “Itachi-sama, you have to get up! _Please._ ”

But Itachi-sama does not move and Tsukimi feels the desperation and helplessness thrum in her chest as she lifts her beak to the sky and cries out sharp and jagged and desperate as the chakra burns and courses through her.

Tsukimi has watched her Itachi-sama for the entirety of her life. She’s seen what chakra allows him to do.

The first snap of a bone rings through the night and slowly the desperate cries of a crow becomes the cries of a young woman.

-

Tsukimi stumbles and drags Itachi-sama the best she can, shivering as she makes her way on uneven feet through the slick mud which climbs high on her body, her knees bleeding where she’d torn them open after slipping more than once.

She forges through blindly with the guiding of her instincts, chakra burning and coiling through her body, pounding with the beating of her heart.

Light finally registers and Tsukimi struggles for her voice but her vocal cords are all wrong and it comes out in a strangled cry, relief nearly making her sag when the door opens and Shizune-sama peers out, eyes widening.

And then Tsunade-sama is there and Itachi-sama is being dragged off her back.

“He got worse,” Tsukimi struggles for the shape of her words. “Warm. Fever.”

“Tsukimi?” Shizune-sama blurts out in surprise, eyes wide. “How-“

“Help him!” Tsukimi begs, lurching forward to bury talon-sharp fingers into Tsunade-sama’s green haori. “You have to-“

A hand settles gentle over her own. “You’ve done more than enough,” Tsunade-sama promises her. “Rest. I will take care of him.”

Tsukimi blinks, sees Itachi-sama cradled in the arms of Tsunade-sama’s tall confident form.

Closes her eyes and allows the exhaustion to finally drag her under.

-

“A crow who became a human. Is such a thing meant to be possible?” Shizune-sama asks with clear fascination.

It wasn’t supposed to be, Tsukimi thinks, looking down at her inky black arms, fingers stroking curiously over the fine dark strands on her skin. She’d never had fur before! So soft! She wonders what Itachi-sama’s hair will feel like and she eyes his sleeping form contemplatively.

“Can you turn back?” Tsunade-sama asks her.

Tsukimi pauses, considers with a tilt of her head.

“I don’t know,” she tells the woman honestly. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Well, maybe wait and don’t try anything until the kid is awake,” Tsunade-sama says with a sigh. “I’ve never heard of a summon taking human form before and you didn’t turn back after collapsing…” Tsunade hums.

Tsukimi glances down at her legs, at the smooth orange lines against the dark of her skin, and wonders.

-

Itachi-sama sleeps for nearly a week and despite Tsunade-sama’s reassurances Tsukimi spends most of her time curled up beside him, her head tucked beneath his arm, feeling and watching the way his chest rises and falls.

 _Kisame-sama is going to be very cross with us,_ Tsukimi thinks as she looks at the squiggles humans called reading.

She liked numbers alright but letters had always bored her and she lets it drop into her lap with a sigh.

Stills as metal presses against her neck, a hand curling warm against her bicep.

She turns, headless of the way he tenses, his eyes widening.

“Tsukimi?” he breathes and it pleases her and warms her that he knows her no-matter the shape she takes.

“Itachi-sama,” she murmurs, eyes glittering. “You’re awake.”

“Are you sure?” he wonders and she’s close enough that she knows he can see her even with the deterioration of his eyes.

She wonders what he sees in the inky stretch of her skin, in the short strands of her hair smooth and gleaming where it curls. There’s orange marks on her face, drawing sharp down the arch of her nose, lined beneath her eyes to touch at the very tip of her nose where her beak had once been.

Her eyes are just as black as ever and her fingers and toes are sharp with her talons.

She hasn’t quite gotten over the fact that she has _teeth_. Terribly strange things, white and gleaming inside of her mouth.

Chewing is the single most tedious task she’d been confronted with and she’d choked on more than one fish after trying to stuff it down whole.

“You were in danger,” Tsukimi pokes a finger against his cheek, mindful not to draw blood as he watches her. “You’re not allowed to die as long as I draw breath.”

“How long?” he asks her.

Tsukimi tells him.

Neither mentions that Itachi-sama’s chakra should have long run out of her as he drags a tired hand over his face and peers towards the door as it opens and Tsunade-sama steps through it.

-

Tsukimi is still human-shaped when they meet up with Kisame-sama some four days later. She’s in a pair of Itachi-sama’s spare pants and shirt and Shizune-sama had borrowed her a green cloak with a hood which flutters behind her when she threads her way forward on bare feet.

Tsunade-sama had told her that as far as her chakra could tell her Tsukimi was pretty much a human teenager, tall for her age and healthy. Her strong wings made strong muscles and while it’s still a bit awkward she’s getting the hang of walking.

“Kisame-sama!” She waves at him where he’s leaning against a tree, slowly pushing off it as he zeroes on her after dragging his gaze up Itachi-sama’s form.

“Tsukimi-san?” he asks disbelievingly.

She bobs her head, spreading her hands and preening in her new form for Tsukimi is Tsukimi, crow or human she’s pretty and she knows it.

It’s not quite the same as her fine feathers but she makes do.

His palm lands on her head, messing up her hair, and she squawks in protest because making pretty as a human is _hard._ Her hair keeps curling all sorts of ways, no matter what she does with it.

“Everything alright then?” Kisame-sama asks and Itachi-sama inclines his head as Tsukimi resigns herself to the palm on top of her head at is rubs almost idly back and forth.

He can be forgiven, fur is terribly interesting with her new human hands, she’d found.

“I’ve gotten medicine and they cleared out my lungs. I need to return for a check-up in a year but they’re confident it can be managed,” Itachi-sama murmurs.

Kisame-sama lifts his hand from her head and Tsukimi blinks at his arm loops around Itachi-sama’s form, dragging her startled summoner in for a squeeze as he froze, stiff and a bit awkward.

There’s something tender in the older human’s eyes, Tsukimi thinks as she watches them quietly and warmly.

She is right – Kisame-sama makes for a good addition to their flock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, welcome to this! I contacted dianamoth (lunaemoth) to get permission for this little short story. Def check out their story, it's amazing and I am soft for it.
> 
> It's pretty much self-indulgent as heck because I am ever of the opinion that Itachi deserved better.
> 
> It won't be very long - I'm banking on two, maybe three chapters for it depending on things. I was in the mood for writing something soft and then it got a bit angstier than I expected but all my works tend to take that turn.
> 
> I hang about tumblr as artsy-death if you're about there.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
